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He screamed in pain, and she kept twisting his arm, but he held onto the needle with a death grip. He turned toward her, and above his shattered, bloody nose, she saw pure hate in his eyes. He yelled, and with sudden superhuman strength, he pulled his arm free. The needle slid along Faith’s forearm as he did, and for a terrifying moment, Faith feared the needle had punctured her skin.
She took a moment to check herself, and that moment was her crucial mistake. Her arm showed no mark from the needle, but when she turned her attention back to the killer, he was already swinging the needle toward her neck.
Time slowed down. Faith had time to feel surprised at how calm she was. She expected to struggle against death, to rage against the dying of the light, as that one poem she had to write an analysis of in college had said. Instead, she found she was ready. She had fought a war. She had survived a serial killer. She had brought several other killers to justice. She suspected that one day she would meet the killer that would finally beat her. Her only regret was that she wouldn’t get to catch the Donkey Killer’s copycat after all.
Just before the needle reached her neck, she saw a flash of brown and black as Turk leapt in between her and the killer and clamped his jaws shut over his wrist.
Time snapped to full speed in an instant, and Faith stared in shock as the killer cried out in pain, falling to the ground while Turk shook his arm, his teeth slicing his wrist to ribbons. Somehow, the killer still managed to hold onto the needle. Faith rushed him, but he kicked out at her. His foot impacted her squarely in her solar plexus, and she fell to the ground, gasping for breath.
She rolled to her side and saw her gun. It lay a few yards away underneath the car.
She turned back to the fight to see the killer scrambling backwards, Turk still gripping his bloodied arm. He punched at Turk, landing hard blows to the dog’s head and neck, but the big shepherd weathered the blows without releasing his arm.
Still struggling to regain her wind, Faith started crawling toward her weapon. She reached it just as Turk yelped in shock.
She grabbed the gun and turned to see the killer on top of Turk. He grabbed the needle from the hand Turk held and lifted it high.
Faith aimed and fired. The report of the gun was deafening in the confined space of the tunnel and Faith’s hearing disappeared as her ears rang loudly. Turk, whose hearing was far more sensitive than Faith’s, yelped again and released the killer, scrambling out from under him and shaking his head from side to side as he backed away.
The killer shrieked, and Faith decided it was a mercy she couldn’t hear him. He clutched his arm to his chest. Where a hand had been a moment earlier was now a mangled, twisted mass of flesh. The needle and its deadly poison were nowhere to be seen.
Faith regained her feet and trained her weapon on the killer. “Stand down!” she commanded.
The killer looked at Faith, and Faith could see in his eyes that he knew it was over. She approached swiftly and pushed him onto his stomach, keeping her weapon trained on him until she planted her knee in between his shoulder blades.
She cuffed him, and as her hearing returned, she was disgusted to find he was crying softly. She yanked him to his feet and walked him toward the platform, Turk following.
“You have no idea how lucky you are that you didn’t kill my dog,” she snarled in his ear.
“Faith!” Michael’s voice called, echoing through the tunnel.
She saw the beam of a flashlight shine through the tunnel, then another, then another.
“Over here!” she called.
Michael reached her just as she dragged the killer back onto the platform. Rameses and Wales were with him, along with ten other uniforms, all with weapons drawn.
She handed the killer—still weeping—to Rameses. “He had a poisoned needle,” she said. “I haven’t found it yet. Take Turk and look for the needle.”
“I’ll do that,” Rameses said. “Damn good work, Special Agent.”
“Are you hurt?” Michael asked, holstering his weapon and jogging over to her.
“Me?” she said. “No, not at all.” She grinned tiredly and offered a thumbs up. “Right as rain.”
Turk barked, and Faith looked over to see he had found the needle shattered, the deadly poison soaked into the dust and dirt of the platform. Rameses nodded at the dog, and he trotted happily over to where Faith and Michael stood.
Michael couldn’t resist a chuckle as he ruffled Turk’s fur. “Your mom’s crazy, you know that?”
Turk barked in agreement, and Faith and Michael shared a laugh.
Faith looked over at the officers—who handled the killer with just slightly less roughness than would constitute a crime—and smiled softly. This might be the last collar she ever made, but she could claim to go out on a high note.
“I owe you a steak dinner,” Michael told her.
“You owe me a lot of steak dinners,” she countered.
“Well, we’ll start with the one and go from there,” he said. “I know a great steakhouse near the hotel.”
